The Legal Beat

BARBRI Teaches Most Important Lesson Of Being A Young Lawyer: Dealing With Passive-Aggressive People
Posted on Wednesday May 24, 2023

Young lawyers might say they want to work for Ted Lasso instead of Bobby Knight, but in reality the age of “the screamer” has already passed. Holdouts remain, but the model of an unreasonable partner long ago shifted toward withering judgment and backhanded remarks.

Your boss isn’t mad, so much as they’re disappointed that you didn’t answer that 3 a.m. email by 3:05.

Like a lot of practical skills, this is another one that law schools generally fail to teach. Thankfully, it’s a lesson that prospective lawyers can learn in bar prep!

A new post in the Law School subreddit claims that the author received this email from BARBRI after trying to unsubscribe from the service’s messages:

Master class. Tacitly accusing the student of putting their career in jeopardy? The backhanded second try discount? Is the exclamation point the detail that puts it over the top, or the gratuitous inclusion of “Esq.” in the signature? It’s a close call.

If you’re wondering about the video link, it’s 21 seconds of looking at a graph showing that BARBRI students outscore the average of all non-BARBRI students (presumably ones who took a prep course, because including students who took no prep course in this figure would be pretty disingenuous). It doesn’t seem to account for the possibility that BARBRI attracts more students with elite job prospects — because those firms cover the higher cost — or breakout the performance figures for each competitor, but whatever. A solid 21 seconds of content should be more than enough persuasion.

Best of luck to the author on the bar exam. But whatever happens, know that you’ve already gotten a preview of the next several years of your career.

Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

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